


Wake Me Up

by Ralos



Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Part3 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:35:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26235772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ralos/pseuds/Ralos
Summary: “...Tomorrow morning, I want omurice.”
Relationships: Kujou Ten & Tsunashi Ryuunosuke & Yaotome Gaku
Kudos: 8





	Wake Me Up

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Wake Me up](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25027303) by [Ralos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ralos/pseuds/Ralos). 



> An English translation by my friend, originally in Chinese, written for Tenn's birthday this year.   
> Generally is TRIGGER friendship, but I see them as a threesome anyway so better not to read if you cannot accept this.  
> Part 3 Chapter 10-12 spoilers contained.  
> Any comments/kudos will be really appreciated.

“Haven’t slept yet?”  
Yaotome Gaku’s voice woke him up from a state of wandering mind, which he wasn’t even aware of. He looked up from the TV screen, and to the one who was standing in front of him—he didn’t know what kind of expression he had displayed, but the other one slightly frowned and continued sharply but more softly: “Who kept nagging about self-management, professionalism, and irregular routine affecting skin, don’t you remember?”  
Kujo Tenn took a shallow breath while taking note of expression management in his mind. Surely, he didn’t mind being cared for, but compassion, mercy, or whatever Gaku was holding—Gakuish desire of protection—was the last thing he wanted at this moment. He didn’t want to be reminded of his incompetence any more, especially after so many years when he had been so demanding to himself, struggling, striving, and battling till now. He thought that even though the countless hard days and innumerable nights he ended up resting in exhaustion were not enough (and never enough), they could at least bring him closer and closer to perfection, although true perfection was untouchable. But perhaps that pricks were also the price he had to pay, at least they reminded him not to relax. Did he slack? Or did he depend too much on the other two—  
The sudden approach of the other person made him almost moved backward by instinct, but he immediately forced himself to sit still: Yaotome Gaku was leaning down with furrowed brow as if he wanted to say something and failed to find the right wording. Too hesitant to be Gaku.  
He realized he had been silent for too long.  
  
“If you hadn’t drunk with Ryuu until midnight, I could have slept earlier at least for an extra week in a month.” He wanted to talk back in this way, while controlling his expression as much as possible and acting as nothing had happened, just to hold the other one back from the completely unnecessary worry, but simply envisioning the following squabbles could make him feel tired and sigh. It was not regret or a self-awareness of powerlessness, but rather that he didn’t feel any emotion at all right now. He was just so tired that thinking, talking, and even breathing are burdens on him like invisible and heavy boulders rolling all the way down in his chest cavity, dragging and forcing him to bend forward. He tried his best to support himself but only stuck out for a few more moments. There was no possibility to do more than merely defend himself. The only option left for him was to sigh.  
“Are you still awake?” Gaku waved his hand in front of him, “Just go inside to sleep if you’ve been tired. The guest room was all set.”  
Gaku’s voice was even softer, which was quite unusual and even strange. He heard such a voice only in the latest TV series where Gaku played the leading role. Perhaps he did let him worried.  
“...Not yet,” he shook his head, and took a deep breath before he barely got the strength to continue, “...Don’t want to sleep for now.”   
The disapproval was clear on Gaku’s face, but right before he said something, the house owner had come over, holding a light-pink mug—when exactly did Ryuu buy the new cups? Did they stay in his house so frequently?  
But including the manager (and sometimes even the president), few people in TRIGGER could refuse Tsunashi Ryunosuke’s much-anticipated requests, especially given that he hardly made any request. Therefore, when he determined to invite the other two to have dinner in his house for the first time, the three ended up sitting at the same table and saying “Thanks for the food” together, despite all possible twists and turns. In retrospect, such dinner had happened so many times that he almost remembered the pattern of the tabletop by his seat.  
Not to mention that Ryuu had apologized to them several times for the contrived scandal/affair...Not to mention today they made him complete their performance alone. Even before Ryuu finished his question, they had already consented in a slightly hasty manner, and when they looked at each other, they confirmed their common ground on the desire to make up for what happened earlier. He and Gaku seldom had such a tacit agreement, so Ryuu was startled and then delighted, showing a bright smile as ever—it was a brilliant and gentle smile, like the tender shine on sea in sunlight.  
  
The mug was put into his hands, with the reassuring smell of hot milk with honey and warm vapor sticking around, followed by the warmth that penetrated to his palms through the smooth cup wall. He finally realized he had been feeling cold before.  
Perhaps because he skipped meals. But he still had no appetite even when they finally left there and got some free time (for they failed to arrive in time and get on stage). Normally he could rely on willpower to force himself to manage health. He might at least get some nutrients although he wouldn’t eat much. But today was exhausting. He hardly even had the strength to buy a pack of candy when passing by the store, let alone offered to borrow the kitchen, or asked Ryuu to cook something for him.  
Looking back on what happened earlier today set off the avalanche of bad memories: futile attempts to escape, the dim dust-smelling basement, and—Kujo Tenn held his thought back from slipping in the wrong direction again. He said “Thank you” to Ryuu in a low voice, and bent his head to sip the hot drink.  
It was warm.  
He raised his head. The gentle eyes of chestnut color stared at him with the same warmth as the milk. He vaguely felt a little more energy to go through the cold and dark night by himself, and was going to say something, but the other one apparently had heard his conversation with Gaku before, since sooner he said:  
“If you don’t want to sleep, it’s okay to just sit here for a while. I’m not sleepy as well. You can talk to me at any time if you like.”  
“No, I’m good.” he said softly, “It’s alright. I’m going to sleep now.”  
But the temperature of that cup of milk was at a subtle point. It didn’t allow him to finish drinking with a few gulps, and at the same time it was so warm that he felt reluctant to put it down, so he did not stand up and leave as he said, but instead held the mug in silence and remained sitting there.  
Perhaps surmised that he wished to be alone, Tsunashi Ryunosuke did not say anything more, just touched his hair gently, and pulled away Yaotome Gaku.  
Now the living room was so quiet that he could almost hear his own breath, so he reached for the remote control on the coffee table and turned up the TV.  
  
He was running.  
Under his feet was an endless road, both its ends hidden in darkness, with the only vague and soft glow faraway. He didn’t know what it was, but was sure that he needed to get there, and had to do so, before—  
Before what…?  
He bumbled and fell heavily to the ground. The thick darkness still surrounded him, so he couldn’t figure out whether he was tripped or exhausted by a long run. It was silence all around, with only fuzzy and remote whispers. He could clearly hear his heart beating violently. He barely stood up and tried to adjust his breath, but failed to settle down anyway. He felt hot. Droplets of sweat kept slipping down from his forehead and his vision was blurred. He raised his hand to wipe them and realized that his body temperature was unusually high.  
Right, he ran out of the hospital.  
The live would start soon. He must arrive as early as possible. How disappointed and sad the audience would be if he was absent? The audience had invested their time and effort and affection to meet them. He should have brought them happiness, by giving a dreamlike performance—  
The whispers grew louder and noisier. He faintly heard someone calling his name. The voice was lively and affectionate in tone, getting increasingly clearer. Might be the fans waiting for entrance. Then the performance hall must be very near. Just hold on for a few more moments, he thought, and did his best to take steps forward, running towards the destination that was calling him.

“…Tenn…” He didn’t know how long it took and how far he had run, but he still didn’t get there. The only difference was that the voice became clear enough for him to hear the growing anxiety in it. There was burning pain in his lungs and he couldn’t almost feel his legs, so he bit his lips hard to draw attention back from the exhaustion of his body and focus on every immediate step, and the next step, and then the next step.  
The familiar voice seemed to be crying—was he making him wait for too long? I’m sorry. I’m sorry—it went on calling him intermittently between sobbing and choking. However, it sounded that the voice no longer expected a response. It was more like self-speaking instead of a cry for answer. It was hopelessly, instinctively, helplessly getting something off the chest.  
Don’t cry...He gasped. His brain ran short of oxygen and went totally blank. Vague thoughts bubbled up and dissipated quickly before he even noticed. Otherwise, you may—  
“Tenn-nii…!”  
That voice suddenly disappeared. The dead silence seemed to put out a hand, grab his heart and grip it forcibly. Otherwise, it couldn’t be explained why it was difficult to breathe, why chills flowed all over his body and everything blacked out, and why he felt so much pain.  
He wanted to keep on running, but with only half a step forward, he fell to the ground again. Injuries and pain are completely trivial at this point. He tried to support himself against the ground and stand up, but he was utterly exhausted and failed to rise to his feet anyway.  
How could he stop here? Riku was waiting for him. He had to find Riku, and he promised Riku that they would never be parted—but he couldn’t move even a step. He wouldn’t find Riku. He wouldn’t find him anywhere, because Riku had left him—no, it was not that Riku left him, but was he who made his own choice. He abandoned Riku. It was his own fault.  
It was all his fault.  
His arm was completely out of strength, so he fell, or the black wave flooded up like an inescapable overspreading net, wrapping and winding tightly around his body like fine threads, engulfing him inch by inch.

Then his vision was illuminated.  
It was not the kind of light as bright as daylight. There was only the dim fluorescent lamp buzzing overhead, and the light from the narrow opening of the doorway, but at least he was able to see clearly what was going on around him, although he didn’t spare a look for it: Riku was right before him, within his immediate reach.  
He wanted to reach out but didn’t. It was not because he was hesitating, but that he couldn’t move. His wrists were tied behind his back, someone was pressing his shoulders and let companions put the rope around the back of a chair. As the rope was tightened; his fingers were growing numb.  
He needed to find a way to get out. He still needed to...but why was Riku here? It had nothing to do with IDOLiSH7, so why could Riku be here?  
He didn’t get time to think about it: Riku took a short and violent breath, as if he woke up with a start. Presumably, the cold air stimulated his lungs. It was followed closely by a terrible fit of coughs. It seemed that breathing was increasingly hard for him.  
Kujo Tenn struggled with his best, but ended up awkwardly falling to the ground along with the chair, making a huge noise. The wooden high chair was unexpectedly heavy. Riku’s face turned toward his side, but his eyes, which were misted up due to the lack of oxygen, could not seem to focus. He tried to move towards Riku without getting eyes off him, in order to make up for his powerlessness.  
He wouldn’t allow himself to shirk.  
He saw the distance between them—which was not even shortened—and grains of dust in the light beam; he saw Riku curling up when he was breathing hard, and saw his whitened knuckles when he clenched his clothes on the chest  
He heard a short and weak cry, which seemed to ask for help. After that, everything abruptly came to an end.  
Everything he could hear, everything he could see, and everything he could touch was all gone. He tried his best to reach forward, towards the direction of Riku.  
There was only void, just like anywhere else.  
  
All his attempts ended up in vain, only to hurt his significant ones.  
  
He wanted to scream, cry, and call for help (even it was futile), but opened his mouth and failed to make any sound. The air had become the softest blockage and wedged in his mouth, leaving no room for struggle.  
He wasn’t able to call out Riku’s name, not even once.  
  
Something was shattered and the crisp sound woke him up.  
Kujo Tenn abruptly opened his eyes, automatically looked around to look for Riku, but only saw the spilled milk on the ground, and the broken light-pink mug lying in the puddle.  
Before he calmed down and got up to clear away the mess, the voice of the other two had come from upstairs.  
“What happened?”  
“Tenn?! You all right?”  
“...Nothing,” he whispered, and raised his head to look up, but immediately looked away when realizing that his vision was still a little blurred. He stood up and said: “Sorry, I will do the cleaning right now.”  
“No. No. No. Never mind.” said the owner of the house while he flew down the stairs, rushed out of the living room and rushed back, stopping by him with a towel before finishing his words. He squatted down and began to pick up the fragments, “Let me do it, Tenn. You may just go and have a rest.”  
“But...”  
“But I accidentally knocked over my cup, and there was no extra sheet in Ryuu’s house,” Yaotome Gaku didn’t let him finish, just said from the second floor, “So do you mind us sleeping together tonight?”  
He immediately wanted to refuse, but as a guest, he had no reason to ask the owner of the house to share a bed with others. Besides, even a king-size bed would not be big enough for the two. When he was about to approve, the one who cleaned up the fragments had raised his head and join the conversation, as if he had been fully prepared to do so, “How cunning you are! I also want us to sleep together as if we’re living together. Wouldn’t it be nice?”  
“But the bed is not big enough...” the leader of TRIGGER pretended to think for a while, “Maybe we can move the coffee table away and sleep on the floor of the living room?”  
“...” Kujo Tenn looked back and forth at the other two. An afterthought came to him that both of them went out of Gaku’s room.  
Then this must be the “gem of wisdom” of their conspiration when he shortly fell asleep.  
So there was no need to discuss whether Gaku knocked over his cup by mistake or on purpose.  
But Ryuu, who was right next to him now, was indeed a poor liar. It was quite obvious that when they looked at each other, Ryuu was trying hard to think of one more reason to persuade him, and finally displayed his brightest smile, which was for groupmates only, “I think Tenn went abroad to study in an early age, didn’t you? Why not take tonight as a school trip?”  
“...Next time,” he finally said, “If Gaku should be so perfunctory to show such poor acting skill at work, let’s ban him from soba for a week.”  
“Why, we don’t have to get to this point!! Wait, who did you say is perfunctory?!”  
He automatically shielded the other’s chatter as he used to do, and got up to get some cleaning tools, so as to cope with the spilled milk before Ryuu had done with the broken mug.  
The remote control was still by his hand. He picked it up and turned off the television which was playing the ending song of I7 Police series.

It didn’t take the three too long to clean the living room before they got in the quilt and said good night to each other.  
Probably because he just had a nap, Kujo Tenn didn’t feel like sleeping. But looking at each other would trigger an unavoidable conversation, so he just lay stiffly on his back, staring at the thin moonlight slipping through the gap between curtains.  
He shouldn’t have turned on the television before, he thought, when recalling the last straw that came from a fictional situation and fell into his nightmare. But it came down to his hesitation and weakness. Everything had been different, Riku had got new companions, who were able to take care of him. In such a night, Kujo Tenn thought perhaps he could admit that Riku had grown to somewhere that he wanted to help him, so maybe he should try trusting Riku more than before; maybe he should believe that (under his companions’ help,) Riku would be able to manage his health and make it through a tight schedule as well as mental stress, so as to become the lead singer of another outstanding idol group and his arch-rival.  
Although Kujo Tenn found himself unwilling to do so, and it was hard to adapt himself to doing so.  
Likewise, he always had trouble accepting that Riku was no longer the one he used to be—his younger brother who had to stay in a hospital bed, who depended on him and gave full attention to him, who needed his protection. So much had changed. Just like he also had new dreams to cherish and realize; he also met new reliable companions and determined to stand with them ever after, for better, for worse, in the abyss or at the peak.

“...Tomorrow morning,” Kujo Tenn said as softly as self-speaking, but the other two, who should have fallen asleep, immediately answered: the left one murmured “Huh?”; the right one asked tenderly “What happened?”. It seemed that they had been waiting for him to say something.  
Indeed, they wouldn’t be so quiet if they were really asleep.  
He began to worry about his sleep quality tonight. Sure enough, he shouldn’t have agreed to share a bed with them.  
Kujo Tenn could clearly feel the presence of the two overly tall adults. He tried to turn over a bit, but failed to find any gap between the two giant obstacles to escape. Finally, he just sighed and tried to overcome his resistance to making a request, and finished his sentence:  
“I want omurice.”  
The request soon received a response in cheerful voice. It was easy to imagine the responder’s honey-colored sparkling eyes and a gentle, sincere smile without turning head.  
Then a hand from the other side ruffled his hair: “Go to sleep now, otherwise you won’t get a chance to grow taller, although you never had one.”   
Perhaps because the lingering tiredness was dragging him, he gave up talking back and closed his eyes, feeling the warmth above his head and next to him.  
  
Kujo Tenn knew that when he woke up again, there would be the tender smell of omurice and rabbit-shaped apple pieces. They would defend him from all nightmares.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading.  
> One note: the scream Tenn heard at the last of his nightmare is from the i7 Police TV show.  
> Set on the night of "Shine on the Sea"'s performance (and of course the kidnap and Riku pretending to be having an attack) which made Tenn be worried again, since (in my version of canon) he had always remembered Riku as weak in their childhood, and when Riku started to get better treated Tenn already left.   
> Anyway it's interesting and ... entertaining to see and write Tenn like this so I really enjoy it a lot() though it's a rather simple fic with almost no plot or deep discussion of a character, unlike what I would like to present...anyway that's it.  
> Again, any comments will make my day or even week so...please?


End file.
